Lawrence Herrera started carrying a folded-up copy of his birth certificate in his wallet last week. He also saved a picture of his passport on his phone’s camera roll.
For the 67-year-old Atwater Village resident who was born and raised here, the precaution felt silly. But he’s not taking any chances.
“I started hearing, ‘He’s taking anyone and everyone,’” Herrara said, referrring to President Trump’s immigration crackdown. “I thought, ‘You know what? That could be me.’”
Herrera was one of hundreds of protesters who spent Fourth of July in downtown Los Angeles to rally against the immigration raids that have roiled the region and the surge in federal funding approved this week to keep them going. Many on the street said they were skipping the barbecues and fireworks this year. Instead, they showed up at City Hall, some in costumes or wrapped in flags. A15-foot balloon of President Trump in Russian military uniform sat in Grand Park.
Erica Ortiz, 49, was dressed as Lady Liberty in shackles. Herrera wore a Revolutionary War outfit covered in anti-Trump pins that he said was appropriate for the occasion.
“Guess what? We have no independence right now,” he said. “That’s why we’re out here.”
They marched through Olvera Street and outside the Federal Building, which houses the immigration court, waving signs. Several police officers were monitoring the protest but kept their distance during the gathering, which lasted a few hours.
“No more occupation! No more deportation!” the protesters chanted.
At the federal building, military members lined up shoulder-to-shoulder guarding the property with shields and guns.
Jacob Moreno, an English teacher from Rialto, held a sign that called the day a “funeral for the freedom we pretend” still exists. He said the mood felt more solemn than the “No Kings” demonstration last month, which he attributed to the passage of Trump’s budget bill. The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” adds roughly $150 billion to carry out mass deportations and fund border enforcement.
“This situation, this occupation is only going to get worse,” Moreno said. The 50-year-old said some of his high school students and their family members are undocumented. He and his daughter, a 16-year-old student, are helping set up a program to provide school supplies and hygiene items to students whose parents may be too afraid to go to work.
“I’m here to support my students, my community, and ultimately to stand on the right side of history,” he said.
Cristina Muñoz Brown, of North Hollywood, shared a similar sentiment.
“I’m desperate for my people, I’m desperate to show up,” she said. Since the raids began, she said, the Fashion District where she works in the costume industry is a “ghost town.”
Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles) addressed the crowd outside City Hall, calling the budget bill the “Big Beautiful Scam.”
“Immigration spending in this country is now more than the military spending of 165 countries around the world. ICE has more money than the city of Los Angeles ten times over,” he said, as the crowd booed. “That’s not what we want our tax dollars going towards.”
The city is still reeling from weeks of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids across the Southland and the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops to respond to the protests that followed.
There have been sweeps at local car washes and Home Depot parking lots targeting day laborers.
“There’s too many things to protest right now,” said Hunter Dunn of the 50501 Movement, which organized the July 4 rally. Many immigrants, he said, are “afraid to go to work, afraid to go to school.”
Federal agents, often shielding their identities with face masks and sometimes driving unmarked cars, have been carrying out aggressive raids since early June, triggering widespread protests.
Trump sent more than 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to the L.A. area to protect federal buildings and workers during the unrest, which garnered pushback from state and local officials who complained that the military presence exacerbated the situation. Earlier this week, about 150 Guard members were released from the protest assignment.
The immigration enforcement actions in L.A. have heightened tensions between city and state leaders and the Trump administration. The public sparring has played out on social media, and in court.
Mayor Karen Bass renewed her calls this week for Trump to end the ICE raids, saying in a post on X that his administration is “causing the fear and terror so many in LA are feeling.”
“They came for our neighbors in unmarked vans. Raided workplaces. Ripped apart families. Even U.S. citizens. This is not law enforcement—it’s political theater with human costs,” she wrote in another post.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is battling the Trump administration in court over the deployment of Guard troops without his consent. And this week, the Trump administration sued the city of L.A., Bass and City Council members, saying the city’s sanctuary law is illegal. The law generally prohibits city employees or city property to be used to investigate or detain anyone for the purpose of immigration enforcement.
On Wednesday, immigrants rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and Public Counsel sued the Trump administration in federal court seeking to block what the suit describes as the administration’s “ongoing pattern and practice of flouting the Constitution and federal law” during immigration raids in the L.A. area.
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